Waiving the right to remain silent, "Jack" <jdoe@hotmail.com> said:

> Larry, I am interested in hearing the unusual story!

Ah-ha... A victim...

Okay. Way back then, I was driving past a huge area at the Port of
Long Beach where Japanese cars were parked after being unloaded
from the cargo ships. At my distance, I noticed what apeared to be
a small field of Mini Coopers.

Too far away to be certain, I drove up to the fence, but still
couldn't get a close look. I saw a guard and asked him what was
parked there. He was able to check some manifest stickers on the
cars, and came back and told me that they were Hondas, and that a
number of them were consigned to Honda of Santa Ana, a well-known
motorcycle dealership.

A few days later, I went to the dealer and immediately became an
owner of one of the first 200 Honda cars ever imported into the US.

I kept the AN600 for about three years, and traded it for a 1974
Civic. I believe that the first year for the Civic was 1973, so I
was still an early adopter of Hondas.

I have not had another Honda until this year, when I got a 2005
Pilot.

A sidebar:

I was in the USMC at the time, stationed near Santa Ana. When I
drove the car on base, a couple of other officers who had been in
Japan told me that they had seen that model there, but it had a
chain drive. Before Honda could export to the US, they had to
design a more traditional automobile transmission, as the chain
would not be allowed here.

Honda's solution included a shift lever which hung off the
dashboard, with rather wonky linkage to the transmission. It was
quite sloppy and loose, but it got the job done.

The AN600 delivered between 40 and 50mpg.

--
Larry J. - Remove spamtrap in ALLCAPS to e-mail

The United States is the greatest country in the world..!
Twenty-five million illegal aliens can't be wrong.